I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for sending data in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available system resources. Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems.
A wireless communication system may include a number of Node Bs that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A UE may communicate with a Node B via the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the Node B to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the Node B.
A UE may be intermittently active and may operate in (i) an active state to actively exchange data with a Node B or (ii) an inactive state when there is no data to send or receive. One or more slow common channels, such as a random access channel (RACH), may be available to the UE in the inactive state. The UE may be assigned resources for a high-speed channel when it transitions to the active state. However, the state transition may incur signaling overhead and may also delay data transmission. It is desirable to reduce the amount of signaling in order to improve system efficiency and reduce delay.